Closure
by FrostedMelody
Summary: In that moment, she saw the world as Celia, and sang her farewells as Alice.


Hello, Frost here! This is mainly inspired by the duality between the songs Magnolia and Myosotis, which explore The Girl's contrasting stances on the death of her brother.

As a disclaimer: I do not own Deemo or any of the characters or content depicted in the game; all of that is owned by Rayark Games and the individual artists whose songs featured in such a wonderful work.

With that said, this is my first fanfic I've ever posted, so I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

The days in the hospital pass by in a dull blur of beige walls and white sheets. Nurses clad in soft blue come into her room, asking her the usual questions and showering her with gentle smiles. She's never asked directly about the accident; the closest that comes is when the doctor comes in, tugging at his beard and asking her with twinkling eyes if she can move today.

Sometimes she asks back if her brother has gotten better yet. The deafening silence is just long enough for the memory of her brother's fading smile to flicker back into her mind. The doctor often falters and asks her less then, thanking her with that worried look in her eye as he leaves ten minutes earlier than on the days she doesn't ask that question.

When they finally tell her that he has passed, she can feel their shock when all she gives is a silent, tearful nod. She already knew weeks ago, when she had grabbed a white-sleeved arm in her hallucinations, begging for it to not move because _Deemo will disappear if we depart..._

After a day of silence, she's given a coloring book and a few colored pencils; she hears whispers that her mother is coming to see her, traveling across the ocean to finally bring her home.

She quickly asks for blank pieces of paper after that, and they're happy to provide. Her drawings start rough, but her directed fingers _echo_ with _his_ movements, recalling the dainty presses he taught her in those few seconds that between them had been the hours of their final recital.

Her first and final drawing is nothing but a roughshod arrangement of black and white boxes, but it will do for now. She quickly slides her fingers over the makeshift keys, recalling sounds in her head that had called her back towards the light. Discordant keys clash together in the rhythm of her mind, backed by roaring static that vaguely resembles that of a drum's loud thuds.

The nurses comment airily on how she must love playing piano, but the doctor takes a more pensive notice, scribbling down furiously in his notepad as he leaves the room. A few days later, a shoddy toy keyboard appears in her room, a white tinny box with colorful stickers pasted onto the twenty-something keys labeled A to Z.

She briefly wonders why they're not properly noted from A to G, but decides not to ask. It doesn't matter if the keys' colors have been masked with glaring reds, blues, and greens - she will bring heir true identities to the front with the sounds she makes.

The next few weeks are spent wincing from both pain and melodies that don't sound _quite_ right.

* * *

Her mother hurries in, curtains of soft brown hair draping her in a familiar hugs as she asks if her little princess is okay. She responds with silent tears dropping onto her mother's pick blouse, forming darkened pink petals as lightning flashes outside the hospital and the sky darkens with rain.

From that day on, she has to try walking again. Sometimes she clings onto her mother's hand; other days she leans against the beige walls nervously, feebly waving hello to other passerby - some young, some old, all clothed in the same leaf-green hospital gowns as she is denote recovering patients, those that are trying to grow again.

Her mind drifts solemnly to an enormous tree that she's only climbed once, and instinctively she reaches out for Deemo's hand. His spindly-fingered grasp never answers, and she falls onto the cold floor, crying.

The next day, she asks if anyone had found her doll at the scene of the crash. It's promptly returned to her in the arms of a grinning policeman, a sea of dark blue washing up her black and white cat with familiar gold-belled red collar.

She carries it with her in every subsequent trip down the hall, singing of shooting stars and cherry blossoms. If she can't spend every day trapped in that shadowed room again, hammering at those worn keys, she'll create other songs of her own to remember her shadow-faced brother, bright white eyes replaced with chocolate brown ones as _she takes that final step onto the leaf-covered platform, sobbing as it lifts her far, far away from him, breaking their promise to be together forever..._

* * *

Home doesn't feel the same.

It's just as she left it when she and Deemo - no, _Hans,_ she corrects herself had left for the last recital. The black and white tiles cross all over the small mansion like a bigger version of the chessboard she had used to play with him, often featuring a little white queen running in circles around a tall black king.

As the mahogany doors close shut, the aged housekeeper takes her hand into his wrinkled palm and asks if she's had a wonderful flight. She gives a tiny "yes", but her eyes instead wander to the the magnificent piano, towering over her with its massive, obsidian form. For a brief moment, she sees herself again, begging her brother to lift her onto the red cushioned bench so that she can press the keys, with him playfully giving in and resting her on his lap, guiding her hands to mimic his graceful movements.

This time, when she is lifted onto bench by the aged man's arms, she nearly falls off the bench in surprise when she realizes there is no back to lean against. She considers getting off, collapsing onto the black and white board again until the housekeeper asks her "Do you want a chair, little queen?"

A brief flash of a fantasy that never was crosses her mind - _a princess in white leaping off a throne, rapier in hand, accompanied her feathered, shadowy angel, Hans, as they faced a purple demon that towered over them, arms holding sharpened steel..._

It would have been easy to sit on that wooden throne forever, pretending nothing had changed, but she remembered her brother's warm arms giving her a fateful push and shook her head.

"No, Lucas, but thank you. There's a song I'd like to practice."

Her fingers now carefully glide across the keys with determination as she loses herself in Hans's old sheets of music, her cat doll watching her intensely from the top of the black tower as she tries to work out the mistakes that disrupt her rhythm.

 _"I prayed that you might be saved,_

 _and took every breath with me in the leafy shade."_

Something is missing from the song, no matter how she moves her fingers and tries to sing the words that come to mind. She carefully delves back into the painful memories of that parting, remembering happier times of a girl naively joking about playing doctor, times of climbing that large, spacious tower with walls that smelled of disinfectant, meeting another girl, her white mask hiding the very same face that had begged _her not to go, not to forget Hans_...

A few weeks later, she sits up from a full combination of perfectly timed chords, and lifts the white opera mask she had taken from Hans' drawer off her face to applause from her parents and Lucas. Placing it on the bench, she just barely manages to grab the music sheets off the piano and walks towards her whispering parents, scrawling " _Myosotis_ " at the top of the first sheet.

* * *

His body had been covered on that fateful day that they lowered his coffin into the earth, a hole as wide as the one in her heart. As the priest began speaking of how Hans had brightened the lives of those that had lived around him, she couldn't help but think that even beyond it, he had reached his long, shadowy arms forward once more to save her from joining from him.

On some level, she had wanted to join him with all of her might. And he had refused, gently patting and pushing her forward, encouraging her to keep climbing up, even though part of her had kept pulling herself back down into that deep, soothing embrace of death.

She was Alice, but she also had been Celia, pulled to the top, dragged back into life almost against her own will. To truly let go of Hans, she would have to say goodbye to him as both of them.

"And now, Hans's sister, Alice, will be playing a song in memory of the man we have lost."

She placed the white domino mask over her eyes and stood up, the world narrowed to two familiar slits that she had once peered through while glaring at her shocked reflection. Now, it glanced at a crowd of family and close friends, waiting for her exposed mouth to sing the song she had prepared for months.

In that moment, she saw the world as Celia, and sang her farewells as Alice.

 _"Hopefully you'll get used to my hugs and goodbyes_

 _when my love falls out of the sky as mournful rain."_

The distant rumble of thunder punctuates the end of her song, and an array of black umbrella open their folds as the rain begins. As tears begin to stream from her cheeks, she takes a solemn last look as Hans is buried in earth, forever gone from her vision.

" _Per Ardua Ad Astra_

 _Bye bye, my doleful aria."_

* * *

Now, children play in the courtyard of the church next to where he is buried, as she strides towards the doors, her white summer dress billowing out in the light breeze. In her hand, she grasps a folder with meticulously edited sheets, erased and rewritten for months until her newest song finally takes the shape she had desired it to.

She always comes here to practice, and just like before, the children clamor over each other, whispering loud hushes as they gathering around to hear the newest song she has prepared. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees some older teenagers walk in as well, creating a mix of familiar and fresh faces like a flowerbed from a distant memory.

It has been five years since then, and she has chosen life. As she slides the pages onto the the stand, the word _Magnolia_ flutters into her vision, as she opens her mouth and sings.

 _"Loves me, loves me not..."_

And she plays, now filling the hole in her heart with rhythms of her own.


End file.
